Thanksgiving roundup

I arrived home Thursday night. The train took about as long as it was supposed to; the traffic out of New Haven was heavy, but cleared just outside the city lines. That night my parents made duck and fish and string beans. It was delicious. The stuffing didn't come until the next night.

Friday afternoon we climbed into the car and drove to New Jersey. The traffic was, for the most part, light. My cousin Chang had invited the family over for Thanksgiving dinner. We brought a turkey; his wife cooked a turkey. Everybody else brought a little bit of this and that. By the time the 40 of us had sat down to dinner, I was stuffed on appetizers. But there was the turkey to try (eaten like Peking duck with the meat rolled up in a tortilla) and soup to sample and, later, cookies and pies to sweaten the deal.

Between meals, we had our gift exchange. Ruthless trading abounded. Three Shrek 2 DVDs appeared. At the end I had a $20 gift certificate to Best Buy; and then there was the final trade. I ended up trading for the Citizen Kane DVD that I had brought myself.

The next morning there were chocolate chip pancakes and munchkin donut holes. After breakfast we drove en masse to Chang's parents' house, less than an hour away. The parents had eaten their own lunch; on the table was leftover lobster. Dan and I sat down and didn't get up until the lobster was done. It was fantastic.

Everyone decided to stay another night. We went to a Brazillian restaurant where I learned that rodizio was the type of food they served and not the name of the place. I had shrimp. I couldn't fathom eating more meat.

Later, the cousins 30 and under went bowling. I was the token silverback. In the first game I bowled a 121, though our team lost by 19. Rebecca, after bowling backwards, managed two strikes in a row thereafter. In the second game, I eeked out a 100, and our team lost by a much more significant margin. We were the last ones in the place. They had already begun cleaning the lanes as we bowled.

Friday morning everyone left early to beat the traffic. Still, that night there were stories of marathon delays and bumper to bumper traffic. An interestate in Ohio was closed for 2 hours. Trips that usually took two hours doubled in time. On the east coast rain followed the families home as they drove to Connecticut and Rhode Island and Massachusetts. In New York it had cleared by three in the afternoon and the sun began to shine. But walking the streets of my neighborhood and seeing how restaurants have already enclosed their entranceways, I sense that winter is already upon us.
Posted by eku at November 30, 2004 10:43 AM